Thursday, March 12, 2009

(excerpted from Clark Coolidge, Far Out West. New York: Adventures in Poetry, 2001)

Phantasm Chasm uneasily unites some of the failed opportunities, tragic events, and myths in Tacoma’s past. Mirroring ways we navigate through town, the installation combines multiple, fractured, partial views of the City of Destiny. Alternating between visions of Henrik Ibsen, noxious weeds of concern, John Muhammad, and the birth of the railroad in Old Tacoma, Phantasm Chasm points awkwardly towards a new frontier, but one that may be ephemerally, erratically transforming, breaking down. Ghosts arise.